The Premier stepped up the anti-OBA rhetoric in her speech at the Progressive Labour Party rally at the TN Tatem Middle School last night.The One Bermuda Alliance is a political party that has gone behind people’s backs to deceive them and to get power, Premier Paula Cox told the crowd, as she led her team of constituency candidates into the last week of the election campaign.The rally gave the 12 PLP candidates running in Warwick, Southampton and Sandys seats the opportunity to speak to a crowd of about 350, who were also entertained with music, the Gombeys, free giveaways as well as face painting for the children who were there.Premier Cox was the last speaker of the evening and she came on stage to the sound of loud cheering and car horns blaring. Like all the speakers, she had a theme song and hers opened with the lines ‘Keep your eyes on the prize and your back to the wind.’She said: “Today we see a Bermuda that has been changed by a PLP government,” and credited the party’s ”steady progress” to the “blood sweat and tears” that people had given to build the party. “We have had victories and we have had setbacks and defeats. There are some who say we have moved too fast and some who say we have moved too slowly. But we have kept our eye on the prize and kept our eye on the ball.”She refered to the ‘secret plan’ a United Bermuda Party 2007 post election analysis that became highly controversial after it was declared a fake by some OBA members who had been members of the UBP, while other former UBP members who did not join the OBA vouched for its authenticity and said the coming election was “about choice a very simple choice” between the PLP, and “a party who had to go behind people’s backs to deceive them to get power.”People have lost homes and jobs, acknowledged the Premier, adding the economic situation ‘has left no one untouched.” But she said the OBA’s ‘cuts and pain committee’ — a reference to a proposal by the OBA to set up a committee to oversee government expenditures, along with the Opposition’s proposed cuts to services, is not the way to go.“And I, when we are in the kitchens, the dining rooms and the living rooms of the people, they are telling us they thank us for the work we have done, whether it is Futurecare, day care, increased pensions, or the economic empowerment zones.“As we are close to celebrating 50 years of the birth of the Progressive Labour Party — the party that has stood for the people — people are saying they recognise our work is not yet complete.”She reported that callers to a radio call-in show had claimed seniors had been targeted by a deceptive flyer. She noted the OBA had a campaign flyer inserted in Monday’s Royal Gazette, and the flyer which has been delivered to seniors had been green, like the PLP party colour, but the content “had some of the same language as was in the enclosure yesterday (Monday).”“Those we should be upholding and uplifting are seniors,” she said. “There is no evidence who it came from, but I think the people of Bermuda know how to connect the dots.”Premier Cox continued: “The PLP party is committed to serving the people of Bermuda. We have evolved. What is true blue, or should I say true green — we are committed to serve the country.”She said: “Up and down the country I expect the people of Bermuda to vote solidly and strong for a PLP government that will stand strong for who they are. We are the party that believes and invests in Bermuda. That is our mantra.“We will stand firm on who we are — this PLP government — this is the Government that is going to represent us today, and tomorrow, and I thank God for it.”Other candidates also had hard-hitting comments to make about the OBA. Dennis Lister, running in constituency 35, said: “Don’t be fooled by that rebranded party, that rebranded UBP. It’s the same old power base with new window dressing.”Zane DeSilva running in constituency 29, continued the window dressing theme. He said: “You’ve heard stories about the Opposition: that they are OBA on the outside, and UBP on the inside,” and described the car that is currently featuring in PLP campaign advertising: “ ... OBA on the outside, but the parts are UBP under the hood.”And Marc Bean, in constituency 26, said: “We have seen by the hasty erection of the OBA that this house was built on sand.” He continued: “You can change the curtains ... you can rearrange the furniture, but eventually, because it is built on sand, the walls will crack.“The OBA structure is not fit to govern this country,” he said. The PLP, on the other hand, was built on solid foundations and on bedrock, he said. “It is clear the OBA are wolves, wolves in sheep’s clothing. The PLP will never become a wolf in sheep’s clothing, because of our structures, because of our principals that we uphold.”Lawrence Scott in constituency 24 said he quotes American president John F. Kennedy when people ask him what the PLP had done for them. “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,” he said.“And you can choose to take this country back to the days of the forty thieves, the old boys’ club, back when the merchant elite — and they did what worked for them the best and we had to go along for the ride — or you can stand strong for the country, community and family,” he said.